An apparatus which composes music score displaying data from the inputted musical performance representing data and displays a corresponding music score on a display screen is known in the art, as disclose, for example, in unexamined Japanese patent publication No. H10-198352.
A music score is displayed or printed by placing various musical notational elements or parts on staves of five lines. The notational element or parts refer to symbols, signs, marks and other indications for the musical notation such as clefs (G clef, F clef and C clef), bar lines, key signatures, time signatures, notes, rests, dynamic marks, repeat signs which are placed on the staves to visually describe music. Staves may be also termed as elements or parts.
The size of an element refers to the dimensions of the element which is displayed or exhibited on a display screen or on a sheet of paper to constitute a music score. In the above referenced patent publication (paragraph [0087]), the size of the notational elements is defined as the font size that is one tenth ( 1/10) of a measure size (i.e. height) VM which is obtained by dividing the size (i.e. vertical length) VW of the music score display area (or window) by the number n of tiers of the staves.
In this specification, a staff tier means a tier of music notation describing a music progression on a staff of five lines. The area of a staff tier also covers spaces for ledger lines above and below the five lines. In the case of a grand staff consisting of a five-line staff with a G clef and a five-line staff with an F clef placed in parallel and connected together vertically, or in the case of an orchestra score consisting of staves for various instrument parts, a group of staves for a simultaneous music progression may be termed as a staff tier.
The above referenced patent publication discloses (in connection with FIGS. 4, 6 and 13) an apparatus for creating music score display data to display a sheet music on a display screen based on the number of measures to be contained in each staff tier and the number of staff tiers to be contained in a page of the score as set by a user.
The above referenced patent publication also discloses (in connection with FIGS. 14 and 19) an example in which the number of measures and the sizes of the music score notational elements are respectively designated. The above referenced patent publication further discloses (in connection with FIGS. 20 and 26) an example in which the number of measures, the number of staff tiers and the sizes of the notational elements are designated, and the priority among those designations can be also designated.
In a known software product (sold by YAMAHA), which is a sequencer software product for a personal computer, the sizes of the notational elements are selectable among four ranks (large, middle, small, tiny) in a music score display window. During an automatic play back of the musical performance data, the displayed range of the music score is changed to the next range when the music progresses beyond the displayed range. When the scroll bar on the display screen is moved by the mouse, the displayed range of the music score is scrolled accordingly. The length (horizontal dimension) of a measure is of a fixed size irrespective of the sizes of the notational elements employed.
In both of the prior art embodiments, the number of notational elements such as notes to be placed in a measure varies from one measure to another. Further, the horizontal lengths of the notational elements to be placed vary among different kinds of notational elements. In this connection, as the number of notational elements to be placed in a measure is large, the notational elements may overlap with each other so that the music score will be less legible. Under such a circumstance with the above referenced patent publication, the designation of the number of measures will have to be changed, or the sizes of the notational elements will have to be changed to a smaller size. On the other hand, with the above referenced software product, the display magnification factor in the horizontal direction will have to be enlarged by clicking the horizontal zoom-in button by the mouse. Namely, the adjustment for better legibility of the notational elements on the musical staves will not be conducted automatically. Further, in the case of the above referenced patent publication (FIGS. 15 and 17), where a plurality of staff tiers are displayed on one page of a sheet music, the designation of larger sizes of notational elements will cause the notational parts of the vertically adjacent staff tiers may overlap with each other, and consequently the user will have to change the designation of the sizes.